A museum for the future
Moderna Museet is one of Europe’s leading museums for modern and contemporary art. We collects, preserves, shares and exhibits modern art from the early 20th century and photography from 1840 and onwards.
The museum opened in 1958, when was moved from the Nationalmuseum into a former navy drill hall on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. The current building was completed in 1998, adjoining the old museum premises, and is designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. Moderna Museet also opened in Malmö in 2009.
THE COLLECTION
The Moderna Museet art collection comprises more than 130,000 works in various media. Originally dominated by three categories – Swedish and Nordic art, French-oriented modernism, and American art from the 1950s and 60s – the collection has been extended to include ground-breaking 20th and 21st century women artists and works from a globalised world. With some 100,000 items, Moderna Museet’s photography collection is incomparable.
Only a fraction of the collection can be on display. But it allows us to explore and reformulate the standard art historical narrative through new insights and constant changes in the exhibition. This includes Moderna Museet Malmö, with its innovative angle on selecting and showing works from the collection since opening in 2009.
